Recliners are generally well known in the furniture industry. The term recliner is used throughout this description to describe articles of furniture that include a reclining mechanism. Generally, recliners are chairs that allow the user to recline and are equipped with extendable footrests. Recliners are often in the form of a plush chair, however, they might also take the form of an oversized seat, a seat-and-a-half, a love seat, a sofa, a sectional, and the like. Recliners are known in both a manual configuration (where the user releases the reclining mechanism from a closed position to a TV position, and moves the reclining mechanism from the TV position to a full recline position) and a motorized version (where a motor is used to move the mechanism between the various positions).
The reclining motion is achieved in recliners with a linkage mechanism that is coupled to a base. The linkage mechanisms found in recliners in the art include a plurality of interconnected links that provide one or more mechanisms for extending a footrest, reclining the recliner, and obstructing movements of the chair when in specific orientations. Typically, recliners known in the art provide three positions: an upright seated position with the footrest retracted beneath the chair (the “closed position”); a television viewing position in which the chair back is slightly reclined but still provides a generally upright position with the footrest extended (the “TV position”), and a full-recline position in which the chair back is reclined an additional amount farther than in the TV position but still generally inclined with respect to the seat of the chair and with the footrest extended (the “fully reclined position”).
These types of prior art recliner mechanisms, while functional, suffer from a number of drawbacks. One of which includes a problem with slack in the linkage mechanism when the chair is in the closed position. Slack in the linkage mechanism results in movement of various portions of the chair (e.g., seat and/or back) when a user sits in the chair in the closed position. It would be desirable to provide a recliner, whether manual or motorized, having an improved stop mechanism that reduces slack in the linkage mechanism when the chair is in the closed position.